Mr. Transportation apparently was doing a pretty good business selling Renault Dauphines in Ventura, CA. The Dauphine was the fastest growing import in 1958, threatening to give the VW some serious competition. That all fizzled out by 1960, when all the imports except VW suffered a serious setback, due to domestic competition, a thin dealer network and a growing reputation for fragility in the hands of hard-driving Americans.
Here’s Southland Motor Imports, in Anaheim, CA. “They’re Here Now!”
And Empire Motors, in Commack, NY. Looks like someone traded in a ’57 Pontiac on a Dauphine.
Make hay while the sun shines…
mn
History does not repeat itself but it rhymes. A picture with a row of 1987 (or so) Renault Alliance and 0% financing would fit here quite well.
The enthusiasm for Alliances was in 1982, but the rates sure weren’t 0 that year. In fact, I’m sure the idea that someone paid a credit card like interest rate for an 82 Renault probably contributed to the explosion of antidepressant prescriptions in the late 90s.
If I recall correctly, AMC-Renault first offered 0 percent financing in 1986, as Alliance and Encore sales were falling like a rock, largely due to the lousy reputation of the early cars.
Chrysler bought AMC-Jeep from Renault in March 1987, and Chrysler stopped Alliance and Encore production in early June of that year.
The only Dauphine I ever rode in was in California – when I was a tot in a 1965 family trip to visit some relatives. I remember that it was turquoise, had a cloth sunroof and that my mother’s younger cousins seemed to have fun driving it.
There was a family in our town that apparently loved Renaults. They had a Dauphine, which was replaced by an R10, and then an R16 hatchback.
That R16 stuck out like a sore thumb in our small Pennsylvania town.
Interestingly, I don’t recall them buying a LeCar or an Alliance.
To days Twingo 3 is the grandchild of the Dauphine down to the Clio engine In its rear and a retro dash.
As a child, I remember a neighbor who would car pool to work in a Dauphine. Noisy as hell, you could hear it coming up the street.
For the Empire Motors photo, Flickr gives an address of 2153 Jericho Turnpike.
The current building resembles the one in the photo. The peak of the roof runs down the length of the building in both photos. Of course, the facade is different, but the right hand side of the facade is truncated in both.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8432391,-73.284123,3a,75y,338.71h,79.27t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s1fjUGubK1iz3TqdBBEecXg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
I grew up in Smithtown have been to that IHOP and never knew it was a Renault dealer.
I have one memory of driving a new Dauphine in 1961 (or ’62 – definitely when I was in high school) in that the floor shift lever felt like it was not exactly solid. The lever felt sufficiently flexible that finding the right gear was a imprecise act. The top of the shift lever seemed to move further right or left or forward or backwards than the base of the lever.
A later drive in a VW Beetle presented a similarly thin shifter but a very solid one with no sense of flexibility.
The things one remembers, or thinks one remembers.
My Father’s foreign car mechanic (as they were known in the 1960’s) described the Dauphine’s floor shifter as having the feel of “a hair growing out of a pimple”.
Yes, the shift linkage was very imprecise. VW did a better job with the linkage. Found a round ivory ball with a 4-speed pattern on it. Gave a somewhat better feel in addition to being an impediment to a possible thief. Matched the rest of the interior pretty well too. Confused the hell out of our friend, who I loaned the car to one day. Still have the Floyd Clymer book. Was surfing the net yesterday and found out he had also republished manuals for very early Maxwell automobiles in addition to much more. I owe a lot to Floyd for helping me with my Dauphine through his book. His other writing was great and his books were inexpensive. He did a lot for motorists over the years.
“The top of the shift lever seemed to move further right or left or forward or backwards than the base of the lever.” I’m having trouble with that sentence, I’m afraid. Isn’t that a description of virtually any lever ?
I’m sure I’m misunderstanding something . . .
I think these had two different horns, a “city” horn and a louder “country horn”.
I bet they did. My 1963 Peugeot featured that as well. The “city horn” was activated by depressing the horn ring halfway, and the “country horn” was applied by pressing it all the way. The city horn was a single horn that produced a “honk”, and the country horn was the “honk” plus an additional horn that said “MEEEEEEEP!” The dissonance created by the two different types of horns was surprisingly effective.
I thought it was a neat idea, though it was a bit hard (for me, anyway) to hit that sweet spot that only applied the first horn. I tended to use it to honk at a friend as they drove by or to acknowledge someone.
Monsieur le Transportation had (I think) a Willys wagon in the showroom, anticipating the later merger.
C: 1960. A professor on our street when I was a pre teen had a Daulphine. You could hear it climbing the hill to pass our house. Always seemed wheezy. His wife drove a Volvo. Yep. a college Prof. and spouse with a Volvo and a Renault. The neighborhood was all MCM homes. Stereotypes exist(ed)
My Dauphine is a circa-1959 Japanese Friction Motor Tin Toy. It’s a little rusty, but the friction motor still works fine. Therefore, I probably have the fastest, most reliable Dauphine… in the world.
Cool! Nice colour too, and the proportions look right; they’re often a bit off with tin toys of this vintage.
That’s that problem with adopting a new/unproved auto franchise. Those that took Toyota or Datsun were living well after a few years. Those that took Renault, DKW, Skoda, Peugeot, FIAT, etc, got burned. Many others like Mitsubishi, Volvo, Subaru, Mazda, etc. rode out some huge economic waves. Some survived, some sold out.
Same situation with US brands.
Good point. But when they’re all new to the US market, who’s to say which brands will succeed in the long term? I guess it depends how thoroughly the would-be dealer does his research before he chooses, and how diligent the parent company and distributor are in setting up service facilities and parts distribution. And training local mechanics in any peculiarities of the marque. Volkswagen aced all this with the Beetle. Unconventional as hell, but it sure succeeded.
In hindsight we can look at the Japanese brands and think they had a better quality product, but that view is flawed. Peugeot was way up there for toughness and quality of engineering, yet they too floundered in the US.
I was 4-6 during the glory days of Renault in the States, and I recall parts distribution was where they and other Europeans fell short of requirements. The word of the street was, “If something breaks they have to order a new part from Europe and it takes a month and a half to get here.” VW, of course, had the rep for bulletproof drivetrains, so parts availability was less of an issue.
So bad the old nice days gone so fast , i loved this NC`s dealer for Renault Dauphine in the sixties. By the way , so crazy , so versatile , would you believe it ? At the same time here in Argentina those Renault Dauphines were assembled in the same line factory big build`s facility plant which produced simultaneously Rambler Ambassadors and Kaiser Manhattan
( domestic name Kaiser Carabela ), source Santa Isabel , Cordoba , ika-Renault Co.
I’m just barely old enough to recall these cars when new/slightly used.
I’m also just barely old enough to recall how mechanics and former hapless owners would turn Del Monte tomato red in their faces and mutter arcane curses when this car was mentioned in their presence.
Renaults have never been common here though they have been sold here for a long time and still are some of the parts they are built from are more common though V6 engines are in Nissans and airconditioning parts that will fit my Citroen can be had for cheap from wrecked Nissans, i found that out after getting the AC repaired with genuine parts not for cheap.
Renaults were reasonably common in Australia from the rear engine days of the 4CV until they stopped local assembly of the 12 in the seventies. Quality was all over the place; my mother’s cousin loved his 10 and replaced it with a 16; another cousin had no end of trouble with her 12. Since then they’ve struggled; most Australians who aren’t car nuts wouldn’t even know of the brand. They’ve left the market and tried to come back so many times I’ve lost count.
I used to walk past a Dauphine on the way to school, and was fascinated bu the scoops behind the doors – so odd.
Seen them in movies, no memory of ever seeing one in the world.
I remember many young teachers etc. driving these Dauphines in the late 50’s and early 60’s, , riding in them felt incredibly cheap plus they were slow .
However, the were pretty good in the snow and I seem to recall they were warm in January, few vehicles were then .
The myriad plastic door handles flexed like mad and squeaked but never seemed to break .
In 1973 or so I bought a 1963 Dauphine for $35, it has the wretched electric clutch “Ferlic” that never worked properly no matter what .
Like Fiats,. those who take the time to learn and understand their quirks, were well rewarded with comfy little cars that stretched a dollar far beyond a VW Beetle’s ability .
Yes, they had a switch to change the horn from city to country, both were wimpy .
VW’s early entry into America was bad, *very* bad so they retrenched with specific dealer buildings, training and mandatory parts stock .
If Renault / Fiat ever tried this they might well have made better inroads in the American market ~ I still see Renaults and Fiats doing yeoman duty, only with those who care .
-Nate
I don’t recall ever seeing a Dauphine in person, despite the large number sold, only in old movies and pictures.
Renault Dauphine, the first car I ever drove. Summer of 62 (I’m 12) and dad brought it home from the dealership at lunch. This one was an automatic, push button drive no less, otherwise I’d have never gotten behind the wheel. Driving limited to the driveway, but how many other 12 year olds can say dad tossed them the keys to a car?
Does anyone here know the history of Mr. Transportation? From the name, it sounds like it might have been strictly a used car dealer (and lower-end “transportation cars” at that) before they got a franchise to sell Ruh-NAWLTS, as they were pronounced at the time.
My recollection is that many Renault dealers were either little hole-in-the-wall affairs, or those old school multi-make import dealers.
If only the reliability of French cars in America was as good as their seats and suspension set ups were.
Mark sad=id :
“If only the reliability of French cars in America was as good as their seats and suspension set ups were.”
If only the various manufacturers bothered to see the normal use North Americans put their vehicles to, much anguish would have been avoided ~ look at the poor Triumph dealers : they constantly told the factory that they needed bikes that would go 75 MPH for at least two hours straight and were ignored or ridiculed by the factory who simply couldn’t grasp the concept of America’s wide open roads, even in the 1950’s and 1960’s when there were few freeways but loads of two laners one could easily and safely ‘do the ton’ on if only th bikes (or cars) could manage it .
This is why the VW Beetle even in 1949 with the tiny 25HP 1130 C.C. engine did so well : you could pin the throttle in top gear and however fast the poor little thing went (65 ~ 75 MP) it would do so all day long without complaint nor breakdown .
The same with late 1950’s ~ late 1970’s Honda Motocycles : top gear, top speed, as long as you want .
I have friends who are idiots like me and think going only as fast as the engine wants to is okay .
-Nate
Notice how small that 4CV looks next to the Dauphine in the first photo.
When I was in high school, a common ad on local radio and TV was for “Renault of Dayton, the world’s LARGEST Renault dealer.” This was in the late Dauphine/early R8 period. There was talk the dealership would sell a Renault to servicemen (Wright-Patterson AFB is here) because the cars were cheap, and when the guys couldn’t make the payments, the dealership would repossess the cars, turn the odometers back and sell them as new. Can’t substantiate that but given the hucksterish tone of their ads, I wouldn’t doubt it. And of course, this being the Midwest, they pronounced it “Reh-nalt”. The site of their showroom is now an interchange for I-75 and Dayton’s North Main Street.
My Dad bought a new R10 in 1968, at Almartin motors in South Burlington, Vt. I remember going with him to the dealership maybe once, it seemed kind of like a garage more than what I’d come to know as dealership (so unlike Val Preda Olds/Cadillac in South Burlington where he’d previously bought his ’65 F85 wagon). It was pretty tiny, don’t think it had a showroom at all, just some garage stalls. I had a job nearby, at the airport 10 years later, but never got back to look at its former location…doubt they still were selling Renaults even though you could buy a Renault LeCar still. Proximity to Quebec province was probably a bit of a factor, there always has been a big French influence in the area; the “big city” we’d take company to visit was Montreal, much closer than Boston or NYC.
My Dad was formerly in the military, in the early 50’s he was part of a National Guard battalion which had been federalized at the start of the Korean conflict. His division was on the way to training in Camp Atterbury, IN, when their train had mechanical problems and had stopped for repairs, then was hit by another train near Coshocton Oh. My Dad wasn’t on the train, he’d gone on ahead to make preparations for their arrival, but was sent back to bring the bodies back to their home in northeast PA. I guess because of the tragedy, instead of being sent to Korea they went to Germany as part of NATO…where he was assigned VW Beetles (also drove REO truck) and much later ended up buying a 1959 Beetle.
The ’59 was totalled parked in front of our house by some teenage driver who lived at the end of our street, so my Dad had to buy a replacement, and ended up with the Renault, his first new “2nd” car, I think partly because by this time my Dad was making trips outside Paris, to Corbeil-Essonnes where his company had a sister plant that made chips (my Dad’s profession), and he’d become a bit of a francophile. Don’t know many people who went from VW to Renault, but my Dad was also a bit of a contrarian…in 1961 he’d moved his family from Southern California to Pittsburgh, I’ll bet not too many U-Hauls were going that direction at that time (we drove back but I think hired a moving van to move our stuff).